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BFIA Action Alert: We must not let Governor Branstad and the Iowa GOP throw away federal funds that would benefit tens of thousands of people in Iowa by providing access to affordable health care. Public pressure is the only way they will be persuaded. Please write a letter to the editor of the Iowa newspaper of your choice. And click here to write to the governor, lieutenant governor, your representative and senator with one click. Or sign this ProgressIowa petition asking Governor Branstad to expand Medicaid in Iowa.

Nearly 400,000 Iowans relied upon Medicaid coverage last year, and that number is growing.

Medicaid is the second largest health care payer in Iowa behind Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Roughly 20% of all Medicaid dollars goes to pay solely for nursing home care in Iowa. Enacted on the same day as Medicare in 1965, Medicaid provides much needed health insurance to the nation’s most vulnerable, and over the years has been expanded to cover the mentally and physically disabled, as well as some children and pregnant mothers.

Medicaid expansion

The Affordable Care Act passed by the US Congress aimed to expand access to health care coverage to the millions of Americans still without health insurance. The primary way that was to be achieved was through an expansion of Medicaid to cover those with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.

Here in Iowa, that would mean up to 150,000 more individuals would have access to affordable health care insurance. And, expansion would cost the state of Iowa very little, if anything, to cover these individuals. That’s because the federal government will pick up the tab for 100% of the costs for the first two years beginning in 2014, and by 2019 they will cover 90% of the costs for expansion into the future.

Even with the state picking up 10% of the costs of expansion, all indications point to the state of Iowa saving taxpayer money through expanding coverage. For starters, the federal match for expansion covers more than it does for current Medicaid recipients. Iowa will also save money through more people being covered by Medicaid which means less emergency room visits by those on the margins leaving taxpayers to foot the bill of unpaid medical costs.

Expanding Medicaid to provide much needed coverage to more Iowans isn’t only the moral thing to do, it’s good public policy that makes economic sense. Governor Branstad and the Iowa legislature should embrace this move immediately.